How to Set Boundaries & Get Your Clients to Respect Them

Setting boundaries is more than just drawing lines; it's about reclaiming your time and energy for what truly matters. If you’re tired of feeling stretched too thin, this episode is your blueprint for setting boundaries that stick.

In this episode, we’re getting real about the importance of boundaries both in work and personal life. We discuss why clear communication is key to preventing misunderstandings and ensuring expectations are met on both sides. Through personal anecdotes, we illustrate practical strategies that work in real-life scenarios, providing you with tools to apply these methods effectively in your business.

If you've ever felt pushed around by client demands, this is the episode for you. Tune in to learn how to assert your boundaries effectively and transform your business interactions.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

• Communicating and enforcing boundaries with clients
• Consequences of failing to set boundaries
• Preemptively setting boundaries for future success

Other Mentioned Links & Resources

Episode 001: Are You Prioritizing What’s Most Important in Your Personal Life & Business?
https://treefrogmarketing.com/are-you-prioritizing-whats-most-important-your-personal-life-business

Episode 120: How to Pursue Your Personal Priorities as a Small Business Owner
https://treefrogmarketing.com/how-pursue-personal-priorities-small-business-owner

Episode 125: Six Time-Saving Hacks for Small Business Owners
https://treefrogmarketing.com/six-time-saving-hacks-for-small-business-owners

Learn more about Basecamp:
https://basecamp.com

Use this coupon code to try Showit for FREE
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/showit-coupon-code

Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com

Get this free PDF guide: How to Use Keywords to Improve Your Small Business’s SEO:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/how-use-keywords-improve-small-business-seo

Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/honeybook-coupon-code

Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426

Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers

Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefrogkelly

Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 6:10 Client communication via Basecamp ensures organization
• 9:13 The necessity of setting boundaries to prevent burnout
• 14:44 Importance of writing down and following through with boundaries
• 19:27 Communicating boundaries with clients to avoid frustration
• 21:30 Established boundaries for four-day work week
• 24:15 Handling boundary adjustments and client expectations

Transcript

Kelly Rice [00:00:00]:
When you fail to set boundaries, you will damage your relationships, your personal life will suffer, and your business won't thrive. And it may not even survive. There are seasons where you're likely will have to grind, but that cannot be your norm.

Victoria Rayburn [00:00:28]:
Hey, there. You're listening to Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders define, maintain, and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.

Kelly Rice [00:00:39]:
And we're your host, Kelly Rice and Victoria Rayburn. And today, I actually have a few questions for you. So, one, do your clients seem to expect responses from you? Twenty four. Seven. Two, do they get frustrated when you don't answer them outside of your office hours? And then three, do you feel like you have zero, like, free time to spend with your loved ones or time to do focused work because you're constantly rearranging your schedule around, like, clients needs? Like, if they're connecting with you after hours or like, what's most convenient for them? If so, today's episode of priority Pursuit is the one that you want to listen to and pay attention to. I promise.

Victoria Rayburn [00:01:20]:
Yes, today we are breaking down not just how to set boundaries in your business, but also how to communicate your boundaries to your clients in a way that's firm but still serves your customers well, and also just commands respect for your boundaries. So, in fact, you know, if you put the tactics we discussed today into practice, you likely won't ever have to tell your clients no to request or leave them feeling disappointed again, because they'll know what your boundaries are and they will actually respect them so they won't ask you strange questions. Plus, you'll be able to unplug and get some of your sanity back.

Kelly Rice [00:01:58]:
Yeah, and before the record, I like that you said some sanity because, well, as we both know, not all small business owners, I don't think that we're ever entirely sane at all.

Victoria Rayburn [00:02:10]:
Yeah, that's, um. That one's more than fair. But before we go down that rabbit hole or reveal how off our rockers we are, let's talk about boundaries. Okay, so, first things first. If you want your clients to respect your boundaries, you have to decide what your boundaries are. Now, you can just blindly come up with boundaries or set typical boundaries, like having a nine to five workday. But in my experience, you are going to be so much more likely to stick to your boundaries if the boundaries you set are a result of your personal and business priorities. Now, this is the priority Pursuit podcast, in case you forgot what you're listening to.

Victoria Rayburn [00:02:50]:
So, you know, we have done countless episodes and had so many conversations about how to set and live according to your priorities. If you'd like to hear more about this, we recommend going all the way back and listening to episodes 1120 and 125, which you can find in the show notes or wherever you listen to podcasts. However, to put this plain and simple, if you want to build a life and business that you love, you have to know, one, what is most important to you in your personal life, and two, what actions move the needle in your business. In other words, where do you and your team, if you have one, need to put your time, energy, and resources to reach your business goals? Chances are you're doing a lot of things that you probably don't need to be doing. So you need to know what truly does matter. Again, you cannot build a life and business you love without taking the time to determine your priorities. So please go back and listen to the episodes mentioned in the show notes. But once you have a clear list of your priorities, you can easily determine just what your boundaries should look like.

Kelly Rice [00:03:51]:
Really? In case it's helpful for those. Cause I'm kind of an example story learner. Victoria, do you mind if I take a few minutes and just give a few examples?

Victoria Rayburn [00:03:59]:
Oh, yes, I would love that.

Kelly Rice [00:04:01]:
Okay, so one of the boundaries that we actually have at Treefrog is that we're closed on Fridays, and we've had this four day workweek for, I don't know, seven or eight years at this point. Um, and it started, I don't know, like, over ten years ago that we would have summer hours, right? Like, do you remember that? Where, like, during certain months, we would. We would have these four day work weeks, and then the staff came and said, hey, we really like these because we feel like we're more productive, and we would really love to have this three day weekend. And we're like, okay, well, so then we set this up as a boundary for a work week, because caring for our team's well being is. It's one of our top priorities. And if it wasn't important enough for them to ask for it, it was important enough for us to be, you know, to. To listen to them. So, being closed on Fridays for us means that our team only works and responds to client messages Monday through Thursday.

Kelly Rice [00:04:51]:
So. But I have to be honest. And I often work outside of those hours. I try not to take any client meetings on Fridays, but if you're like me and you're really busy and you have multiple kids in sports and you kind of have to take off during the week here and there to get them to practices and games and all of those types of things, I personally work a little bit on Fridays, at least to catch up and do some things like that, but I 100% don't expect the rest of the team to do that. And I try not to communicate with clients on Fridays as well. It's more of the, you know, my catch up day, if you will. Right. I think the staff really enjoys that from us, from a production perspective, I think we are just as productive, or maybe even more in those four days than having the five day workweek.

Kelly Rice [00:05:38]:
What do you think?

Victoria Rayburn [00:05:39]:
Oh, absolutely. And I would say, too, maybe we should just do an episode at some point about the benefits of four day workweek. We'll add that list. But it is really nice that Kelly said, you said, you know, you, a lot of times you do work on Fridays just so you can get the kids games and stuff. But it is really nice, too, like, as an added employee benefit, that if a team member does have something going on in the week, let's say, like, a friend is in from out of town, like, of course they can just flex their time and they'll work a half day on Friday so they can grab lunch with that friend or do whatever else. But anyway, we're talking about boundaries.

Kelly Rice [00:06:07]:
Yes.

Victoria Rayburn [00:06:08]:
Another example. Yes.

Kelly Rice [00:06:10]:
Yeah. Um, another badger we set, which is one that I really, really like. And to be honest, it was a little bit hard to get moving and communicate to our clients. But we figured it out is that we only allow clients to communicate via basecamp, which is our client communication system. So clearly, we take meetings and phone calls and all of these types of things, but we don't allow our clients to email any of our team members directly or dm us in social media or text us or anything like that. And this is to be sure that all of our client communication is in one place so nothing falls through the cracks, which, honestly has happened in the past, which is why we've had to set this boundary to be able to serve our clients better. I mean, if anybody's like me, if I have 15 clients emailing me everything that they need, there's a chance that I'm missing an email, something goes to spam, something like that. So we've set this boundary that says, hey, we really need you to participate in utilizing basecamp.

Kelly Rice [00:07:07]:
Here's the reason and why. Because it serves our clients well and it makes sure everyone on our team knows exactly what's going on. And then after we do have like a meeting or a phone call or something like that, we always send a client an update message or a summary message through basecamp so that one, our entire team knows what's going on, and then so does the client. So that's, I think, one of the big ones that we really, really work hard to try to stick to. And then more recently, one of the boundaries that I personally set was blocking days to work on specific tasks. And I think, Victoria, you do this as well. But like, for example, on Wednesdays, I work on my personal brand stuff, and if I don't do that, then I'll just keep pushing it off. I mean, let's just be clear.

Kelly Rice [00:07:48]:
If I don't have that set time that I'm going to do it, something else is going to come in that I want to do more than that. So do that. And then on Thursdays, I take discovery calls. And then Victoria and I both have predetermined days that we meet with our strategic marketing coaching students. And the reason for that is that we can focus and we know exactly what we're doing instead of having to jump from task to task and change your brain function really quickly and all of that. So those are just a few examples from my work life. Victoria, I know in your past life as a wedding photographer, you set some pretty strict boundaries. Would you want to share those?

Victoria Rayburn [00:08:21]:
Yes. Yeah. So, man, these are all for the record set because, wow, was I burnt at one point. So as a wedding photographer, I did things like, I capped the number of weddings I took at 20 per year. I only took one session per week if I had a wedding that weekend, and then two if I didn't have a wedding. I reserved Fridays and Saturdays specifically for weddings, meaning I shot engagement in other sessions during the week. So Monday through Thursday. And then if I didn't have a wedding that weekend, that meant I wasn't working.

Victoria Rayburn [00:08:52]:
So I didn't take shoots or weddings on Sundays, holidays. During major holiday weekends, I scheduled at least one weekend off per month. And I only answered emails during regular business hours. Oh, yeah, and I also instructed all my couples that all their wedding details needed to be communicated via email. So nothing got lost in texts or DM's because brides really love texting you about their wedding. But I will absolutely lose something if it doesn't come with the right place.

Kelly Rice [00:09:21]:
I do. I love that you set those boundaries because I remember how ragged you were running around and just worn out when you were trying to please everybody all the time and meet all of their schedules and do everything when you first started your business.

Victoria Rayburn [00:09:36]:
Yeah. And I mean, it's really hard to set those boundaries when you love what you do, but eventually they have to be set. And, you know, I'd love to tell you, I'm a wise woman, but like I said, every one of those boundaries was set after hitting burnout or learning a lesson the hard way. But anyway, there are not any right or wrong boundaries. So maybe you need to set working hours. Maybe you need to cap how much work you take, or maybe you need to pre determine and schedule time off well in advance. But again, as you determine your boundaries, we just want to encourage you to look at your personal and business priorities and set boundaries that protect those priorities. So, you know, maybe working a nine to five, maybe that just doesn't make sense for you.

Victoria Rayburn [00:10:21]:
Maybe that's not beneficial for your family. Maybe you have a spouse or a partner who works weird hours. And if you're working nine to five, that means you miss their entire existence. But, you know, when your boundaries are in alignment with what's most important to you, you're going to be so much more likely to spect your boundaries and you're going to be able to simply enjoy your life and your work more.

Kelly Rice [00:10:41]:
Right. And I just want to add really quick that if you don't set boundaries, your business will run you. Period. Exclamation point. Right? Like, take it from someone who has had to sit on the bleachers with her laptop during I don't know how many baseball games. Right. Without boundaries, you will miss out on time with your family and friends. You'll just never come up for air.

Kelly Rice [00:11:05]:
And really, you'll just burn yourself out again and again and again. And then you get to the point that you're like, I don't even know what I'm doing. Why am I doing this? Because you lose sight of it. Because now it becomes a job and a chore and not a passion. So. And then on top of that, really without boundaries, you can't serve your clients well. I mean, if you take on too much work, you'll miss deadlines. You won't have time to under promise and over deliver, which we talk about a lot.

Kelly Rice [00:11:30]:
And you ultimately fail to serve your clients well or really just in a way that will make them want to come back or refer you to other people, because the whole goal isn't just to get this done and then move on. You want to build those relationships, especially as a small business, right? So I don't want to be that downer, but I do want you to take this seriously. Because when you fail to set boundaries, you will damage your relationships, your personal life will suffer and your business won't thrive. And it may not even survive. Yeah, there are seasons where you're likely will have to grind, but that cannot be your norm. We want to tell you to take our advice before it happens to you. Or if you're sitting there and you're like, oh my gosh, you're speaking about my life, right? Like set some clear boundaries. It'll be good for you and it'll be good for your clients as well.

Natalie Franke [00:12:18]:
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Kelly Rice [00:13:03]:
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Kelly Rice [00:14:14]:
Again, visit treefrogmarketing.com dot Showit to try Showit for free and so that you can have a website that is easy to use but works as hard as you do.

Victoria Rayburn [00:14:23]:
Now, if you are listening to this episode and thinking, I don't have that much business coming in right now, so I don't need to set boundaries or I can't afford to set boundaries and get all the bills paid. So you know me, you're just thinking like, I need to take all the work I can get. So, yeah, I can't set boundaries at the moment. I do want to encourage you to think otherwise because now, before your business is consuming you, is the ideal time to set boundaries so that you can preemptively set yourself up for success.

Kelly Rice [00:14:54]:
Right? So regardless of where you are in your business, please determine and write your own boundaries down. Kind of like figure out what's going to work for you, what's going to work best for your customers in terms of how you communicate, the hours that you work. Whatever is important to you. I agree 100%. Start thinking about it now, because they can be flexible. Once you realize that, oh, maybe this boundary needs to be added, or maybe this one really isn't something that is important. Or whatever it is, just know that they're not set in stone, but you need to pay attention to them. You need to set them and then you need to follow them.

Victoria Rayburn [00:15:31]:
Yes, Kelly Rice, you need to follow those. Yes, sometimes we say what we need to hear, too. But bonus points, if you put this list somewhere where you can see on a regular basis so you are reminded of them, they're staring you right in the face. And then also, if you share this list with someone who can help hold you accountable, maybe that is a spouse, a close friend, another small business owner. But I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've told myself, like, okay, I'm never going to do that again. That's a boundary I've set, but I didn't tell anybody about it, and so I just let it slide on by. Right?

Kelly Rice [00:16:04]:
Or it's that, you know, incrementally you start breaking those boundaries. And then you look up and you're like, why am I so overwhelmed? Why? Well, it's because I started taking meetings on Fridays. I have customers emailing me or dming me or doing all of these things, and I'm trying to manage all of these things that I shouldn't have to manage because I have a team behind me that can manage those, but because I didn't follow the rules that I set, I made my life a little bit harder. So.

Victoria Rayburn [00:16:31]:
Yes.

Kelly Rice [00:16:31]:
Yeah.

Victoria Rayburn [00:16:31]:
You're just your own worst enemy.

Kelly Rice [00:16:33]:
Yeah, I know. You're speaking directly to me. I hear you. Yes. Yeah. But once you've determined your boundaries, you have to get your clients to respect them. And I know that might sound difficult, but, like, think about it for a second. In reality, you probably aren't surprised.

Kelly Rice [00:16:51]:
Like, if you want to go to the dentist and you can't get your teeth cleaned at 09:00 p.m. on a Friday night because your dentist is a traditional dentist. I mean, I know they have the dentists that are open for, like, third shift workers and all that, but your dentist, if he's not that or she's not that, you realize that you can't schedule a dentist appointment at 09:00 p.m. or. And we all know this one, that you can't swing through a chick fil a drive thru on a Sunday afternoon. This is because your dentist and chick fil a have a. They've clearly communicated their boundaries, which clearly are their hours, you know, in this case. And because of this, you aren't shocked that you can't get your chicken nuggies on Sunday or, you know, you can't get your teeth cleaned on a Friday evening or whatever because you respect those boundaries.

Kelly Rice [00:17:33]:
I mean, chick fil a is a big business, but how great is it that they are staying true to their values and saying, hey, we are not working on Sunday? So the key to getting your clients to honor your boundaries is to simply, like, clearly communicate what your clients can expect from you. So when you proactively set expectations, you actually are setting your clients up for success. So they'll know what they can expect from you. And this will prevent present. Geez. Prevent them from ever assuming something or feeling disappointed while working with you. I mean, we've all had those conversations with clients, right? They're like, well, you didn't say or I just assumed that. And then the customer guilt takes over, and you're like, I didn't say that.

Kelly Rice [00:18:21]:
I didn't outline it. I get, you know, so I guess I'm going to do this thing because of whatever. So that's where the boundary setting is so important, of setting that clear expectation for your clients.

Victoria Rayburn [00:18:31]:
Exactly. Because, yeah, when you, when your clients know what to expect from you, they're going to respect your boundaries and they won't take issue with them, especially when you serve your customers well. So, yeah, we've established the fact you need boundaries. You need to clearly communicate your boundaries to your clients. But the question now is, how do you communicate them? Now, just for the record, I'm gonna make this very clear. The answer is not to hide this information in your contract. There is a very, very good chance your clients will miss this information and they're gonna feel blindsided when you say no, as your contract states. So basically, hiding boundaries in your contract is only going to set you up for confusion and frustrated clients.

Victoria Rayburn [00:19:16]:
I can't tell you how many times that coaching students and people have said they're just asking for advice or like, well, my contract does say like, that this conversation, it's not going to go well. So the best way to communicate your boundaries with your clients is to make mention of them both aloud and in writing. And you're going to probably need to do this again and again and again.

Kelly Rice [00:19:39]:
Right. And here's an example. Like for Treefrog, we talked about that we're closed on Fridays, so we are not available to our clients most, you know, Fridays through Sundays. Right. But if we didn't communicate this boundary to our clients, they would have every right to be frustrated, you know, if we just are like, oh, well, sorry, yeah, we don't work on Fridays. Like, that's, that's not how it is, right? Because we used to get a lot of clients, you know, requesting something on a Thursday, and then if we're not in the office on a Friday, then not getting a response till Monday, they would totally, they would be like, really, really frustrated. But now they know if they send something in on a Thursday that they know that they're not probably going to get communicated with until Monday. So it works because we've communicated it.

Kelly Rice [00:20:19]:
So. And we communicate it in a bunch of different ways. I think that we have it on our website and all of our online directories, right, because go back and listen to whatever episodes they are about, you know, local SEO, but making sure that your business directories are updated with all your current hours and all of that. So even when they google you on a Friday to get your phone number, potentially to call you, that it's going to say that you're closed on a Friday or whatever it is. Right. So we inform our prospective clients during our discovery call. We let them know, hey, you know, these are our business hours. We don't work in Fridays.

Kelly Rice [00:20:51]:
These are some of the other things that you should expect in us and we can expect from you. We include it in our proposals. We remind our clients all the time during the onboarding process, both in the email series that we send in our conversations again. Right. Because especially when you're onboarding, there's a lot of information that we're telling our clients, but we don't ever want them to be surprised about that. We're not going to respond to them on a Friday, and then we just mention it. Right. Sometimes clients forget and they ask if we could schedule a meeting on a Friday, and we simply say something like, you know, oh, yeah.

Kelly Rice [00:21:21]:
As a reminder, our office is closed on Fridays, but I could share my calendar with you so you can pick a day that works best for you, and then we send them, you know, our Google or honeybook schedule. So that works really well for us because we've never got the. Ugh, I can't believe that you're not open on Friday. It's the. Oh, yeah, I forgot. No, that's. That's great. You know, I'll.

Kelly Rice [00:21:40]:
We'll pick a. We'll pick a time on Monday or Tuesday or whatever it is. So by making sure that we've informed our clients for our four day work week, we're able to set them up for success and, like, prevent, like, the really awkward situations where we feel bad for saying, sorry, we're closed on Fridays. It was a little. I'm not gonna lie, it was a little awkward at first because a lot of us are people pleasers, and we want our clients to be happy, and we don't, you know, we don't want to. We don't want to add an extra burden to them, but then we have to protect our mental health and our sanity and all of that, which is why that we've established boundaries and we're going to do tremendous work, whether it's on a Friday or a Monday. Right? Yeah.

Victoria Rayburn [00:22:18]:
Yes, exactly. And to give one more example, like Kelly mentioned before, we do require all of our clients to communicate with us through basecamp. Again, we don't allow them to dm us, text us, or email members of the team directly because that is chaos. But to enforce this boundary, and, like, this boundary does take work to enforce, because you know what? People just. They want what's convenient. They want to text us, they want to just do what they want to do, but we really have to enforce this boundary. And to do this, first of all, we include this information in proposals, we don't hide it in the contract. And the proposal that Kelly sends over, that's always very pretty.

Victoria Rayburn [00:22:55]:
There's a section that explains that. And then also usually Mary will go over this policy. Policy during onboarding. So she gives instructions and a whole spiel on, this is how basecamp works. This is what you need to do. If you have a request for a project or if you need help with something, go to basecamp, put the message there. And then we also remind our clients that this policy, whenever they break it. So that said, every time we make mention of this boundary, we're also sure to explain why this is the policy in a way that shows that this boundary meant to set our clients up for success.

Victoria Rayburn [00:23:31]:
It's not like we're not being selfish, but we'll sell them something like, if a client texts us, we're going to tell them something like, you know, so good to hear from you. As a reminder, we keep all communication in base camp. This helps ensure that our team and yours can access all communication and nothing gets lost, missed or forgotten. Please send this message via basecamp and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Kelly Rice [00:23:54]:
Right, and reminding clients that we have policies in place to better serve them, so much more likely to respect that boundary moving forward and be like, oh, I'm going to send them an email. Oh, wait, no, I need to pop that into, into base camp. Right, because we want to protect them as well. Again, this one's specifically talking about communication. So our entire teams gets notified and nothing falls through the cracks if they have a request or something like that.

Victoria Rayburn [00:24:19]:
Yes, 100%. So basically, just know that how you communicate your boundaries matters. So when you communicate your boundaries to your clients, try to just do so in a way that's kind and helps them see your boundary as a win for them.

Kelly Rice [00:24:34]:
Right, right.

Victoria Rayburn [00:24:36]:
Okay, so now you might be hearing all of this and thinking, I'm sorry, but there is no way this is going to work with my clients or for my business. And I get that because I used to tell myself the same thing. In fact, when I was a photographer and I decided I wasn't taking weekend sessions anymore, I was so ever loving, nervous that people would be upset. However, I was shocked to find out, like, not a single client, like really bad, not a single couple told me they were going to go work with a different wedding photographer because someone else was willing to shoot their engagement session on a Saturday or a Sunday. Instead, my couples regularly took off work for their engagement photos, and they made a date night or even a whole day out of the experience. Like, someone got massages and stuff before. Before it was time to take their photos, and you'll get your hair, got their hair and makeup done. But then, more surprisingly, families adjusted.

Victoria Rayburn [00:25:29]:
I didn't take a ton of family sessions, but I had a few that were, like, tried and true and always, always happy to photograph their families. And when I got communicated this boundary and gave them more photo options, I was really shocked by how many were willing to, you know, on a weeknight, bring their kids out into a field at sunset and have their photos taken, or even to do sunrise sessions like before going to work, school, or daycare. Did not see that one coming, but it honestly worked out really well. Kids are much happier in the mornings. But to give you just one more example, I really like my chiropractor. And just the other day, he told me that he'll no longer be taking appointments on Wednesday afternoons starting next month. And I usually go on Wednesdays. And I, of course, wasn't frustrated by this.

Victoria Rayburn [00:26:15]:
I mean, he made a boundary clear and explained that he wanted to be able to spend Wednesday afternoons with his kids. And because I appreciate his business and respect his decision, I simply scheduled my next appointment for Tuesday. You know, no big deal. That's fine. So again, when you clearly communicate your boundaries, your ideal clients are going to honor them. I mean, I promise you that they will honor them.

Kelly Rice [00:26:37]:
So if you're finishing this episode with a new list of reasonable boundaries, that is great. Like, I hope your brain is spinning, but be sure to get this information on your website, in your onboarding materials, and make it part of your workflow so that future clients can see this right away. And then also, if the boundaries will affect your current clients, be sure to inform them, you know, via email or with a phone call or during your next meeting, whatever it is, because chances are you'll need to tell them more than once. So decide how you're going to kindly do that if you feel like it's going to change any of their workflows or the things that they have been doing. So. But this probably goes without saying. And if you currently have things on your calendar that break your boundaries, don't cancel on your clients. Like, complete those obligations that you said that you would do and then just set these new boundaries moving forward.

Kelly Rice [00:27:28]:
Kind of like, you know, Victoria, your chiropractor did right. He, like, he gave you a whole month's warning. So just be, just be mindful when you do that. And then when you're listening to us next week, I hope your shoulders feel, like, so much lighter because you've taken time to think about how, like, setting boundaries can help create a better experience for you and your customers and your team, if you have one. Because I know our team really appreciates it when we stand up and just really adhere to our boundaries for the, for the good of. All right. So now the work, it really does begin to ensure that you are going to not only think about your boundaries, but actually set them and then put those expectations in place. Because let's be real, we're business owners and we have these good ideas, but sometimes life takes over and the fires happen and all that, and we don't put things into place.

Kelly Rice [00:28:19]:
This is a priority. So make sure that you think about it, you do it, and then you, you act upon those boundaries. Yeah.

Victoria Rayburn [00:28:27]:
Yes. It's a top priority. So whether you're a paper to do list person or you're using ClickUp or Asana or whatever else, go put this in there right now. But on that note, thank you for tuning into another episode of the Priority Pursuit podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you'll take a moment to share it with your small business friends and to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts us, and that you'll join us next week for even more marketing boundary and priority driven tactics you can use to build a life and a small business that you love.